The last available report per BookID is marked

Reporting Self-Updating Data Using Wildcard Union in Tableau

Imagine you have some kind of system that produces reports on your data – for this example I randomly decided to use bookings for events -, and these reports are published on a regular schedule. Now you want to see two things in your report:

  1. The current status of participants per event – both for past events (i.e. the actual number of participants) and for future events (i.e. the current number of people registered).
  2. An overview of how the number of people registered changed over time.

Also, your source system is publishing these data as .csv files. How can this be done?

Well, very easily using the new wildcard union feature introduced in Tableau Desktop 10.1! Read on to see how this can be done.

Continue reading →

Using Tokyo

In the introduction to the UN HABITAT report State of the World’s Cities 2012/2013: Prosperity of Cities it is written:

“As the world moves into the urban age, the dynamism and intense vitality of cities become even more prominent. A fresh future is taking shape, with urban areas around the world becoming not just the dominant form of habitat for humankind, but also the engine-rooms of human development as a whole. This ongoing evolution can be seen as yet another assertion, albeit on a larger scale, of the time-honoured role of cities as centres of prosperity. In the 21st as in much earlier centuries, people congregate in cities to realize aspirations and dreams, fulfil needs and turn ideas into realities.”
(United Nations 2012, v)

I could not agree more, and this is one of the reasons that I was captivated by cities from an early age, long before I started my academic career – or even had an idea of what an academic career is, for that matter. Cities interest me, cities fascinate me, and cities defined me. Having lived in Munich, Frankfurt, and Tokyo, and having visited many other amazing specimen worldwide has definitely had an impact on me and taught me many things. Studying cities is never boring and continues to surprise and astonish me on a regular basis.

Continue reading →